The world is a funny place, no soon as you've found your perfect product, the manufacturer has found a way to make it cheaper and probably worse and eventually the shop stops selling it.

This is the sad story of my constant quest to keep myself furnished in Travel mugs. If you've not read my previous editorial on the key constituents of a accepatble specification of brew vessel you should probably do this now as it wil probably turn your perception of what appears on the face of it to be a mental rant from me into a

Anyhows, turns out my previous favourite travel mug from B&M wears out after time - I killed my first one after driving off with it on the roof of my car (it was very courageous though, I managed to rescue it with nearly a full load of tea intact and was able to finish the brew as usual. The poor mug on the otherhand had sustained damage to the lid - a large crack made it a little leaky and my trusty cup was put out to pasture and only called upon in an emergency.

The replacement mug served me hapilly for many months although after time it was apparent that the lid was ever more tricky to close properly. This did result in a couple of moments when the lid popped off whilst swigging but many more infuriating moments of trying to get the correct closure in the depths of winter post bike-ride before the liquid temperature dropped catastrophically low.

B&M had stopped stocking that exact model and replaced it instead with a 

Step in Popundworld, their travel mug